Video HowTo: Creating an XLL add-in for Excel 2000 – 2007 (VB.NET)

Looking at the list of video howto samples already published, I’ve just realized that most of them target Outlook. This is no wonder at all, because every MS Office developers would confirm that Outlook is the most in-demand application from the Microsoft Office family. However, we somewhat neglected Excel, which is the second in popularity among Office programmers and end-users. I believe it’s the right time to fill in the gap.

Following the recent video sample showing how to resize the Advanced Task Pane programmatically, today I’m presenting you an example of XLL add-in for Excel 2007, of course you can do the same in Excel 2000, 2002 (XP) and 2003 as well. This sample implements two functions: one returning the square of the input argument, the other accepting two strings and returning their concatenation.

You can also watch another video showcasing the creation of XLL add-in for Excel 2000 – 2007. From that video you will learn how to communicate with a COM add-in, how to determine the cell address from which the UDF is called from, and how to accept references to data rather than data itself.

This technology is now available for our custom development services only. Based on the Add-in Express for Office core, it is designed for building custom-tailored Office add-ins with far less coding than you usually have to do. Plus, it includes all Add-in Express features such as True RAD, visual designers, Outlook view and form regions, etc.

Get the best platform for building version-neutral, fast and easy deployable plug-ins by using Add-in Express projects templates, visual designers, components and wizards in combination with a perfect Delphi compiler.

This is an extension for Visual Studio that allows developers to quickly create WiX-based setup projects in a familiar Visual Studio way.

The Designer for WiX Toolset lets you forget the plain Windows Installer XML and concentrate on your deployment logic. It integrates several editors with the Visual Studio IDE and provides a set of vdproj designers to configure the file system, registry, user interface, custom actions, launch conditions and more for your setup projects.

The innovative technology for customizing Outlook views and forms. It is included in all Add-in Express for Office products and can be used to extend Outlook views, e-mail, task and appointment windows, To-Do bar, Reading and Navigation panes with your own custom sub-panes.

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